they had anchors immensely large and strong, spent the night there: in the morning, after they had returned thanks, and sacrificed on the back of the whale, they buried their dead, sung their Io Paeans, and sailed off. Such was the battle of the islands. BOOK II. From this time our abode in the whale growing rather tedious and disagreeable, not able to bear it any longer, I began to think within myself how we might make our escape. My first scheme was to undermine the right-hand wall and get out there; and accordingly we began to cut away, but after getting through about five stadia, and finding it was to no purpose, we left off digging, and determined to set fire to the wood, which we imagined would destroy the whale, and secure us a safe retreat. We began, therefore, by burning the parts near his tail; for seven days and nights he never felt the heat, but on the eighth we perceived he grew sick, for he opened his mouth very seldom, and when he did, shut it again immediately; on the tenth and the eleventh he declined visibly, and began to stink a little; on the twelfth it occurred to us, which we had never thought of before, that unless, whilst he was gaping, somebody could prop up his jaws, to prevent his closing them, we were in danger of being shut up in the carcase, and perishing there: we placed some large beams, therefore, in his mouth, got our ship ready, and took in water, and everything necessary: Scintharus was to be our pilot: the next day the whale died; we drew our vessel through the interstices of his teeth, and let her down from thence into the sea: then, getting on the whale's back, sacrificed to Neptune, near the spot where the trophy was erected. Here we stayed three days, it being a dead calm, and on the fourth set sail; we struck upon several bodies of the giants that had been slain in the sea-fight, and measured them with the greatest astonishment: for some days we had very mild and temperate weather, but the north-wind arising, it grew so extremely cold, that the whole sea was froze up, not on the surface only, but three or four hundred feet deep, so that we got out and walked on the ice. The frost being so intense that we could not bear it, we put in practice the following scheme, which Scintharus put us in the head of: we dug a cave in the ice, where we remained for thirty days, lighting a fire, and living upon the fish which we found in it; but, our provisions failing, we were obliged to loosen our ship which was stuck fast in, and hoisting a sail, slid along through the ice with an easy pleasant motion; on the fifth day from that time, it grew warm, the ice broke, and it was all water again.